Serena began the discussion as soon as she settled at her desk, quickly distracting Flavia from thoughts of Flavio.

Despite staying later than usual due to their initial delay, neither Flavia nor the professor showed any hurry to conclude the meeting. They had turned off the office lights, and the desk was illuminated only by a table lamp and the computer screen.

Serena looked at Flavia with a satisfied smile, so affectionate it made her appear docile. Flavia lost herself in that smile, savored the touch of her hand, and, for a moment, her ambitions about participating in the military project seemed irrelevant.

«Look at the time...» Serena pointed out. «You missed your gym training to stay here; I know it matters to you.»

«If I miss one, it's not a big deal. This was more important, right?»

The professor unfolded her lips into a smile. «For me, yes. More than you can imagine. And for you?»

Flavia thought for a moment before answering, holding Serena's kind gaze. «I believe so.»

«More than the conversation with your friend?»

Using silence instead of words, Flavia responded with tacit agreement.

Serena then drew her gaze closer to Flavia's face, her blue eyes shining and evident like headlights in the twilight. «Come on, tell me what you're really looking for in me.»

Flavia wavered, confused by something that echoed in her heart, and she brought out her words in little more than a whisper. «I... don't know why you have this effect on me, I don't know why you spark my interest so much, why...»

«Why you enjoy spending so much time with me instead of with that guy who is so important to you? Why you have stayed here until this late hour, and why you are willing to stay, late into the night and to come back again? Is this what you're asking yourself?» the professor suggested. She took a deep breath and began to answer her own questions which she had used to express Flavia's thoughts. «Because you, like few others in the world, harbor the unrelenting suspicion that reality is incredibly deeper than what you've experienced so far. Because you intuit, you perceive, that the illusion we call experience doesn't end where your eyes capture light or where your skin makes contact with the air—that your limits are physically beyond, and you don't even know how much beyond, the infinitesimal portion of the universe that your senses can explore. Because that limit, as frustrating and undeniable as it is, is so elusive it makes you feel blind and deaf and plunges the cry of your spirit into an abyssal muteness. And because, inevitably, something vague but unforgiving is insistently telling you that I can help you explore that limit, and you hope that I—perhaps even unconsciously, indirectly, or fortuitously—can show you a glimmer in the darkness that oppresses your essence, can throw you a rope to attempt, if not a crossing, at least an approach to the vast chasm that separates your life from a unity of existence, a unity you know must be there to make sense of everything that constitutes your consciousness and memories of that life that you no longer arrogantly believe belongs entirely and exclusively to you.»

Flavia had struggled to keep her knees still while listening. Tight-shouldered, she had to rely on the back of the chair to mask the sense of vulnerability that weakened her torso. She felt read inside like never before, with a precision that was both terrifying and alluring. The emotion that was stiffening her throat and petrifying her gaze was a mix of instinctive fear and irrational hope.

Torn, she forced a smile of distrust. «Do you really think you can clarify all these things for me?»

«Yes,» Serena confirmed with extreme calmness and kindness. «I know you better than anyone else in the world.»

«What makes you think that?»

Serena's blue eyes sparkled at the hint of a smile, which was then contained in a sphinx-like expression. «Because I'm an extraterrestrial,» she said slowly. «I've been observing your existence for centuries before you were even born.»

All at once, Flavia released all the tension that had built up in a brief, sudden laugh. «What a stupid joke!»

«Yet it's not a joke...» reiterated the professor, moving closer to caress Flavia's cheek. «What you see now is not my true form.»

Flavia decided to play along: «Oh, isn't it? And what would you really look like?»

In silence, Serena stepped away from Flavia by a few paces and immersed herself in the dim light, far from the brightness that enveloped the desk.

«This is my true form...» she smiled, kind and reassuring, then slid two fingers of her left hand onto her right wrist.

Flavia couldn't mentally process what she saw at that moment, as it was so extraordinary. More confused than she had ever been since her own resurrection in Claudia's body, she saw a ring of faint sparks, just visible, descend along the professor's figure and surround her.

The silhouette of Serena Pinzini had become taller and slenderer; the clothes that Flavia had seen her wearing just moments before had dissolved to make way for a halo of transparent veils that shimmered iridescent and ethereal—Flavia was looking at the most beautiful girl she could have ever imagined.

«My name is Clyella.»

Flavia jerked back, tremblingly gripping the surface of the desk behind her.

«Why are you speaking to me in Italian if you come from another planet?» was the only thing she managed to mumble amid hyperventilating.

«Would you have preferred Japanese? Or Arabic? Any of the languages you know are fine by me.»

«This is bullshit!» said Flavia, her face white, as she watched the alien approach slowly. «Now you have to explain why you look totally human to me!»

«Because I am.»

«You say you come from another planet, for goodness' sake! Why would aliens living light-years away look human?»

«We're related. There are lots of human civilizations in the universe, mostly descendants of other human civilizations, but that's not a rule.»

«Descendants... what does that mean?»

«A group of biologists, engineers, and designers go to a planet, synthesize DNA, and create an ecosystem. Life has always existed in the universe and has always propagated this way. You don't think life formed by itself, do you?»

«I don't know, if we're here, maybe...»

«Have you considered what the odds are for life to arise spontaneously? You should know that...»

«...they are mathematically close to impossibility,» Flavia interjected. Though her voice was still shaky, she felt like she was regaining clarity. «Did you bring life to Earth?»

«No, it wasn't us,» the extraterrestrial responded amiably.

Speechless, Flavia stared at her, eyes wide and her breath still somewhat shallow filtering through her parted lips. Clyella seemed calm and at ease. With fluid, relaxed movements, she turned her back to Flavia, her dark blonde hair shuddering slightly, and walked into the darker part of the office to open the window. Bracing herself on the windowsill, she leaned her head out and took a deep breath of the fresh air that invaded office in a sudden gust. Her honey-colored curls swayed, brushed by the breeze.

«I wasn't exaggerating earlier,» she said, her eyes lost in the dark sky, «when I said that I know you better than anyone else.»

«Really?» murmured Flavia.

Clyella turned back to look at her: Flavia was aware of how much her sense of disorientation must be showing. However, Clyella didn't seem either disturbed or surprised by the storm of emotions Flavia was grappling with.

«I know why being close to Flavio nearly kills you, why nicotine helps you breathe, and why you never dream when you sleep.»

Flavia furrowed her brow, trying to hold back the lump that was pressing her throat.

Clyella smiled. «Almost never,» she corrected. «And I know that you died in the lake, and from being a boy, you found yourself resurrected in the life of the girl who was your best friend.»

A draft ruffled Clyella's hair and then moved on to touch Flavia's wet face. Framed by the streetlight coming in through the window, the extraterrestrial's dress of iridescent veils fluttered as if animated by its own life. Like a jellyfish, it swam in the darkness, painting it with tiny incandescent red and electric blue lines.

Without taking her eyes off the angelic woman before her, Flavia wiped away her tears with the back of her hands, and Clyella returned to contemplating the city of Rome beyond the window.

«The evening is warm today,» she commented, her body looking like it wanted to float on the windowsill, «though it can get terribly cold around here.»

The cold, indeed terrible, of Valdaora's lake came to Flavia's mind. «Tell to me what happened to me,» she pleaded.

Clyella slowly turned towards her and, aware of the discomfort with which Flavia was struggling to speak, waited for her to express her torments.

«Why am I here? Why did I go back in time six years to steal the life of a girl who was a friend of mine, why the life of the very person I cared for more than anyone else?»

Amidst the amber noise of the traffic that entered with the breeze, Clyella spoke with the calm and crystalline gentleness of someone who can carry their own paradise deep into the abyss of hell: «I could tell you it was inevitable, that it was destiny, that it's humanity's fault, that it's your fault, mine, nobody's, the universe's... and it would all be true. The reality is that there are no reasons why, the reality is that there is no distinction between cause and effect because, ultimately, they are the same thing and can take on one or the other role depending on the perspective from which we look at things. The apple doesn't fall from the tree because gravity exists any more than gravity exists by virtue of the apple falling from the tree. The future is not the result of the past any more than the past is a necessary and consequent condition of what the future is. Time is just the illusion in which the mind arranges the events of its experience, and it's free will—the consciousness that permeates and observes the universe always and everywhere, and of which each one of us is a fragmentary form of expression—that determines reality itself and everything that happens.»

To give Flavia time to think, Clyella paused just long enough to take a deep breath. «But, for now, this discourse is too complicated to satisfy your question, isn't it?»

Standing, leaning against the desk behind her, Flavia was motionless and absorbed like a spectator at the most delicate string concert, and with just the calm of her attentive gaze, she urged Clyella to continue.

«Your death at Valdaora was an accident. An unforeseen event. Lots of unforeseen events happen, you know? But this particular one was among the worst that could happen to us. We couldn't...»

«Is it a...» Flavia began to ask, but Clyella immediately interrupted her.

«Oh, no» she laughed, «it's not a royal "we", my planet hosts a great Assembly that tries to help less developed planets, like yours. It operates by forcing events, opening entropy flows between sections of the universe with a variable number of dimensions. That's why we call it something that, in Earth languages, could be translated as the Interdimensional Assembly. The Assembly consists of several hundred members who rotate in sessions of 144 members at a time and is led by a council of twelve executive members. I am part of that council. Despite the sensor network we had set up to observe Earth, we couldn't save you from the meteorite. If you're here, it's because your life is very important for planet Earth, and we couldn't let it end with that accident. Therefore, the Assembly decided to take a scan of your mind and bring you back to life.»

Flavia struggled to control her heart, which was now pounding so hard it was visibly shaking her. Her arms, anchored on the desk behind her, were no longer enough to mask the tremor that was besieging her at the knees.

With slow and light steps, Clyella moved away from the window and approached Flavia again. «It's only to allow you to live that Earth has gone back six years, and that Claudia was chosen to give you her life.»

«Claudia, the whole world...» Flavia hissed voicelessly.

«The entire Solar System,» Clyella clarified. «We've enclosed it in an ellipsoid that we sent back in time. But it would be more accurate to say we reversed the flow of events within it to bring it back to the point where we let you live again. The entropy related to those six years has been dumped into the section of the universe where you saved your other self from drowning. While you all relived that time span, we waited in this section of the universe, in this reality, for more than six years. Until, about four months ago, you returned. With clocks six years behind, but, all things considered, in good condition.»

«It's impossible! If we had skipped six years of time, astronomers would have noticed...»

«Yes, they would have noticed,» Clyella emphasized, «if they could only see the stars where they are now. The universe you see from here is a screen, an image we've put around you that is slowly aligning with the real universe. It's to not confuse you too much...» she explained with a "forgive us, we didn't mean to" expression on her face. «Even so, some anomalies are already popping up to vex your researchers, as you probably know.»

«It's absurd...» Flavia murmured, terrified by the most violent impotence she'd ever felt. The beautiful alien before her was casually describing a reality that frightened her, that injected into her veins a terror imaginable only in the face of monstrous power. A power that humanity had relegated to gods and mythology. She felt dizzy seeing herself on the brink of the end of the world, observing the irrelevance of her own race. «Earth is a marble you use for your games. We mean nothing...» she breathed.

«Oh, but that's not the case! It's up to you to decide. Everything we do is only to help you.»

«To help us? Really, does it seem like help to you?»

«You need to be guided... protected. Not because you are worth less, quite the opposite. You belong to a very special race. Your ability to learn and your ambition for knowledge are unique among all the civilizations we have contact with. And in you... the enthusiasm and fervor that burn within you in creating practical applications are so strong that you never manage to measure the consequences. The first and easiest application of every great discovery is destruction. Whether it's fire, the wheel, metallurgy, chemistry, nuclear physics... you find it too difficult to wait to learn to control your means before putting them to use.»

«And what does all this have to do with me, why did you resurrect me?»

«We need you, or the other you, to break through a barrier. You're so competitive and proud of your discoveries that you're still divided into nations, despite knowing about democracy for millennia. Throughout history, and even now, as soon as you manage to have a government that can unite the people, it turns out that the nucleus from which unification begins closes in on itself, sees its advantage over the world, and falls into the fear of losing it. Then information gets hidden, corruption develops, communications are blocked, counterfeited, distorted... this happened with ancient Eastern empires, with the Roman Empire, and it's happening with your 'West'.»

Clyella sighed. «It's one of your traits, there aren't enough people on Earth willing to take the leap and aim higher, to strive for improvement especially when there's much to lose, rather than settle for the miserable advantage that keeps them content because they see others who are worse off. The peoples of this planet lack the courage to overcome fear in favor of love and to risk what they have in pursuit of higher goals than those previously achieved. Rather than risk another nation matching the achievements of the most advanced, the latter prefers to hinder progress or block it entirely just to maintain supremacy and apparent comfort. It's called national pride around here. Since the time you started using nuclear energy, the risk of an irreparable catastrophe has been terrifying. But you're also close to evolving and progressing into a civilized community... I am convinced you can do it. The mature civilizations in the stars around here are eager to make contact with you. For this reason, the Assembly has developed plans for Earth, but you are so difficult and unpredictable that the initial plans have only partially succeeded, the times they did not entirely failed. Now, time is almost up, there will be no room for other plans. The last plan we have initiated began less than six hundred years ago and is almost at its conclusion. The name we gave it could be translated into Earth language as the Samādhi Plan.»

«Transcendence...» Flavia murmured, intimidated at the thought that an alien Assembly had focused its attention so much on none other than her, who was, in reality, born as a him and should have remained so.

«You are the only key to the entire Samādhi Plan.»

Flavia grabbed her elbows and hugged her arms to her chest. «You've got the wrong person; I've never been anyone...»

Clyella smiled warmly to melt the icy expression she saw crystallizing on Flavia's face. «Do you really believe that we would have reprogrammed the last six years of the entire Solar System for the wrong person?»

«What's the point? You threw us into a parallel universe for six years and left us there!»

«Well, from our perspective, what we do is take a spare future and bring it into our reality,» she corrected, without any expectation of calming her down. «Although we cannot have an idea of what exactly that future is, we can establish its initial premises. Like, in this case, the fact that you were safe in Claudia's life.»

Flavia broke away from the desk, heedless of the tremor that had now taken over her entire body. Beside herself, she clenched her fists while losing control of her voice.

«From your perspective?» she shouted in anger. «My perspective is that of someone who was thrown by force into that spare future! And in the body of a girl, at that!»

«Believe me, we've considered everything. It was the only way to give this planet a chance.»

«Of course! Sending Earth back just five minutes to eliminate the meteorite that killed me would have been too difficult for your Interdimensional Assembly! Or just resurrecting me directly in my own body and time instead of the freaking mess you've made!»

«If we had brought you back to life at that moment, your attitude toward life would have changed too much,» Clyella calmly explained. «You would have lost all interest in your friend Cristina's project.»

«So why didn't you just reset the time needed to destroy the meteorite?»

Clyella met Flavia's stony gaze and let her angry breathing fill the silence. When, after a moment, Flavia seemed to regain her composure, Clyella took a deep breath and resumed, amiable and patient: «Right during your fall into the lake, a process of mental resonance was taking place between you and one of the members of the executive council on the Assembly's planet. That mental resonance was crucial for activating an important part of your potential. You had to stay in our section of the universe for that to be possible.»

Flavia's mind went back to that moment, recalling the thoughts and emotions that had left a vivid imprint on her. She brought a hand to her forehead and slowly rubbed her temple.

«What are you talking about? I have no idea what this mental resonance is.»

«You've heard of morphic resonance, haven't you?»

«Vaguely...» Flavia commented.

«The ease with which individuals can develop a new skill increases as more of the population already has acquired it.»

«Sure! The story of the hundredth monkey learning to wash potatoes and magically transmitting its knowledge to all the monkeys in the world. You know what? That's bullshit. That's pseudoscience!»

«Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from pseudoscience,» Clyella observed.

«It's "sufficiently advanced technology" and "indistinguishable from "magic"!» Flavia corrected. «For goodness' sake, you can't even quote Clarke correctly!»

«It's the same. You know exactly what I mean. Or do you think I took an interstellar trip to tell you tales?»

«I wouldn't know; you don't even look as old as the centuries you claim to be.» Flavia would have guessed Clyella was sixteen, or a little older.

«As a matter of fact, I'm many centuries older than what I hinted at. Several Earth millennia older, we could say.» Clyella saw Flavia's eyes widen. She looked away for a moment, lost in her own memories. «You almost don't realize it, and you start counting your age and the passing time in generations, rather than in years.»

«You... don't age?»

«I have been old.» A sigh escaped from Clyella's little nostrils, and the hint of a smile barely lifted the corners of her mouth. «In the second half of my first century of life, on my home planet. But the technology we have at the Assembly, and in all interstellar civilizations, allows us to maintain a young body.»

«So you people don't die...» Flavia surmised.

Clyella looked back at her and smiled, this time showing a row of perfectly aligned, pearly white teeth. «But look at you; you don't look all of your twenty-seven years either, do you?»

In silence, Flavia pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows, and slowly shook her head.

«Mental resonance,» Clyella resumed, «is a type much more specific and intense compared to the common morphic resonance within a species. The power and precision of the resonance depend on the genetic matching between individuals. You understand what I'm trying to tell you so far, yes?»

Flavia answered with a choked throat. «That I'm an alien too?»

«No,» Clyella laughed gracefully, «but you're not just any Earthling either. Entire segments of your chromosomes are identical to those of three members of the executive council. We designed them to allow you to evolve immensely faster than it happened to us. We didn't get the wrong person.»

Clyella moved closer to Flavia, delicately took her face in her hands, and looked into her eyes: «Almost all people are born by chance and are accidents of fate. Their lives are the result of random and fortuitous events, ranging from their parents meeting to the sperm cell that wins the race to the egg among hundreds of millions. None of this applies to you. You are not the product of accidental events; your birth, your life, was consciously wanted and planned by the Assembly, which is comprised of a selection of some of the most enlightened minds in the universe. For twenty-eight generations, every sperm cell in your genealogical line reached its target because we decided so. Your existence was chosen.»

Clyella hinted at a smile, and for a moment Flavia thought she saw a twinkle in her eye.

«All humans have qualities, virtues and flaws, strengths and weaknesses in equal measure, as their genome is randomly produced generation after generation. Your case is different; your genes have been selected for twenty-eight generations to produce a human being with qualities far above the average. Your mind is much more efficient than others'. This is why you need much less sleep compared to the average, this is why you normally never remember your dreams. The first time you dreamt was after the first mental resonance you experienced. You would have dreamt even if you hadn't had to die and resurrect in Claudia's body that night. The load of information you received was so intense that it led to a restless night where your mind worked much more than usual to sort things out. The executive with whom you resonated conveyed to you the belief that no mistake is irreparable, that no harm is so great that it's not worth dedicating oneself to remedy it. Your second night of dreams was during menarche, when your nervous system had to readjust following a hormonal wave that no man is predisposed to face. The last time you dreamt was a few months ago. In saving the other you at the lake, you triggered resonance with an executive capable of withstanding the most desperate of situations.»

Flavia recalled the unspeakable despair she had felt upon realizing that she continued to live in Claudia's body despite having avoided Flavio's death, and the unusual sense of acceptance that had soon flooded her without apparent explanation.

«Your talents are not limited to your intelligence, your photographic memory, or your extraordinary ability to distinguish and analyze sounds, images, smells, or any other sensory stimuli. You can't even imagine your potential because there are many human characteristics that you are not even aware of, characteristics that an enlightened human being can only cultivate through centuries of conscious growth and disciplined exercise. We've planned these mental resonances to accelerate your growth and enable you to complete the Samādhi Plan. You've been given advantages that spontaneous nature cannot offer. You are, in every sense, a superman.»

«A real superman,» Flavia scoffed. «Look at me! I am not even a man!» she screamed at the top of her lungs. «Can you imagine the suffering I've had to endure all my life? Or for both my lives?»

Flavia swept her arm across the desk surface. The computer flew against the shelf and then fell heavily to the ground, while sheets of notes slowly spiraled towards the floor.

«My life as a man ended without me ever being able to touch a woman! I have always been socially inept, struggled to get meals until the day I died, and never even managed something as natural for others as connecting with people or forming an emotional relationship with a girl!»

«You're mistaken,» Clyella said with absolute serenity, «you're so caught up in self-pity that you're speaking without any rational perspective to your words... you, the masterpiece of genomic engineering on this planet, the human being endowed with the greatest intellectual abilities in history!»

«How am I wrong?» Flavia moaned. «Explain it to me! Because I can't...»

The knot that struggled to petrify her throat got the better of her voice and broke it. Tears overflowed from her eyes and Flavia fell to her knees, defeated by sobs.

«I can't... I just can't...» she implored, with her face hidden behind the small hands that once belonged to Claudia.

Clyella moved a chair and crouched next to her. «You don't realize your worth. You are so special that I crossed the space between stars for you, Flavio.» She gently touched her shoulder.

A chill ran down Flavia's spine. She lifted her head and fixed her clouded eyes on the angelic woman in front of her. «It's been a lifetime,» she whispered with a broken voice, «since anyone has called me that.»

Ephemeral as a mirage, Clyella closed the short distance that separated her from Flavia and enveloped her in an embrace hug that smelled of silk, perfume, and warmth. Between her soft arms and her veils of gentle shade, Flavia felt flooded with a love so intense it saturated every fiber of her being, and she let herself go to tears and sobs.

«It's been even longer,» Clyella murmured, «since I've been waiting to call you by name.»

For a time that felt infinite, Flavia let herself be cradled by the energy contained in that embrace—an energy that came from another world. When her tears finally subsided, she found Clyella's light brown eyes upon her, full of majestic innocence and willing to offer her all the patience she required.

Seeing herself there, emotionally drained and tearful in the arms of a being who had just revealed herself to be an alien, Flavia felt a deep and secret sense of self-consciousness. She said nothing to Clyella, but at that moment, Clyella let her go, stood up, and retreated a few steps until she was out of the cone of light surrounding the desk.

«You've spent six years as a woman and think you've learned nothing? Do you realize what you've become? The extraordinary skill it takes to achieve the success you've built in Claudia's life? I know things didn't go the way you wanted them to as Flavio. But your life was designed to be difficult. Much more difficult than simply being trapped in the wrong body. Yet here you are, because your immense worth enabled you to accomplish something miraculous.»

Clyella extended her arms to Flavia and, leaning over her, helped her to her feet. Without letting go of her hands, Clyella took a step back to give her space. «Look at yourself,» she said smiling, «all the qualities you admired in Claudia—her intuition, her ability to influence others' emotions, the subtlety with which she charmed and seduced people—are now yours to wield!»

The Executive noticed the look of bewilderment on Flavia's eyes. A fresh breeze touched Flavia's face, reminding her that her cheeks were wet. With still-trembling fingers, she wiped away her tears.

Clyella picked up the computer and other items Flavia had thrown to the floor. When she returned to hand them to her, Flavia was still Disoriented, trying to make sense of what she had just heard.

Clyella approached, moving with outstanding grace, and gently passed her arms around Flavia's body, her hand reaching up to caress the back of her neck.

Their faces were inches apart. Clyella's soft figure brushed against Flavia's lean, athletic body. She touched her lips to Flavia's in a kiss as light and swift as a butterfly before pulling away. The iridescent veils of her dress found breath again and resumed to defy the laws of physics with their fluid movement.

Dazed, Flavia closed her eyelids and exhaled deeply.

«You're exhausted,» Clyella noted.

Flavia lowered her eyes.

«I want to ask you,» the Executive murmured, «not to speak of this with anyone, including... yourself. Especially him, actually.»

Clyella stared into Flavia's eyes as if they were the rarest diamonds in the universe. Flavia indicated she understood and headed for the door, accompanied by the Executive. The corridor was dark and deserted.

«You can go, don't worry,» Clyella assured her. «You'll find the faculty door open; no one will notice you leaving.»

«How do you know?»

Clyella chuckled softly.

«Did I already tell you that I'm an extraterrestrial?»

Left alone, Clyella leaned against the closed door and a weary sigh lifted her chest.

«Forgive me...» she murmured with closed eyes and a heart wide open on the crystal dream she was crafting for Flavia. A dream that, she knew, had already begun its descent, doomed to shatter against the harsh surface of reality.